In the United States, a meal travels about 1,500 miles on average, before reaching your plate. Eating locally- produced foods reduces fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and a variety of other negative environmental consequences associated with the transportation of foods. Growing, harvesting, and transporting our food is one of the largest energy consumers in the U.S. Ways to facilitate local food production and a community garden in a city setting include:
- Organize a municipal community garden program.
- Create a municipally funded not-for-profit organization to support community gardens.
- Include community gardens in your general / comprehensive plan.
- Allow zoning for community gardens.
- Form a community garden committee.
- Provide an easily accessible inventory of all vacant public/private lots and open space.
Farmer’s Markets are a growing solution to community-based agriculture to support local farmers and shift to a more local economy. From 1994-2006, Farmer’s Markets have tripled in the U.S. from 1,755 to 4,385, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Given that many Farmer’s Markets are located in urban settings, this allows more people to walk, bike or ride mass transit with their produce and purchases. There are approximately 23 million acres of lawns in the U.S. that could be transformed into gardens. In addition, Relocalization is a large and growing movement across the U.S. to emphasize the importance of eating food grown within 100 miles from where you live. In our experience, it feels good to meet the farmer who grew the food on your table. Plus locally-grown produce without pesticides or chemicals tastes better and is much healthier for us, our children and the planet. You can also add a garden onto the One Million Gardens registry who's goal is to document the creation of 1,000,000 food gardens in the United States.
